Piano Music

Ludovico Einaudi
Love that name.
wiki
b. 23 Nov 1955.
Born in Turin (city) Piedmont (region), Italy.
Italian contemporary music composer and pianist.

grooveshark
imdb
google

Not Over You

I like this song.
It's that background beat stuff that's so catchy.

Grooveshark
Gavin DeGraw
(Nope, that's the only song I like.)
Not Over You

YouTube

wiki
Gavin Shane DeGraw (b. 4 Feb 1977)
Grew up in New York.
He was recently (Aug) hospitalized after being assaulted and then hit by a taxi.
Whoa.
Not Over You released in May.
First time I've heard it.

songfacts
a "collaboration with One Republic's lead singer and songwriter for hire Ryan Tedder"

Midnight In Paris

This was a fun relaxing funny movie.
Exactly what I needed at the time and I'm glad I bought the DVD because I'll watch it again.
I thought Owen Wilson was the perfect fit for the character Gil.

Midnight In Paris
Who are the people that Gil meets after midnight?
Ebert

Music - Avicii

Avicii - Levels

Via:
YouTube Rewind 2011
Ultimate Dog Tease, Talking Twin Babies, The Force: Volkswagen Commercial, etc

I also like:
Avicii - Fade Into Darkness (Official Vocal Edit)

Both 2011 songs.

wiki
Tim Bergling (b. 8 Sep 1989)
Known professionally as Avicii, Tim Berg, The Phoenix, Lois C, and Tom Hangs.
A Swedish DJ, remixer, and record producer.

Bounce Pop-up Flash and Bokeh Kit

Photos above from photojojo.

Via:
dig photo school

Bookmarked these items and plan to buy them eventually.
Blog for reference.
I did not know a person could bounce pop-up flash. Sounds like it would be a very weak flash, though, and not sure how well it would work. I'd like to try it.

Photojojo links:

Bokeh Kit
Bokeh Kit
$25.00

Popu up flash bounce
Also
lightscoop.com
Bounce Pop-up Flash
(SLRs only)
Works on my XSi Canon
$30.00
Manual Mode
ISO 800
Widest Aperture (Lowest number)
Shutter Speed 1/200 - 1/160
Set Flash On
Set Flash Exposure Compensation up
Flash set to TTL metering (Thru The Lens)

I'm not familiar with TTL. Will have to look that up in my manual.

Golden Eagle

We heard about snowy owls in the area (active during daytime) so we went for a drive.
No snowy owls, but what do we have here?




A golden eagle.
Location near the Missouri river.
He seemed kinda scraggly; made me think he was a juvenile.

Didn't get any clear photos.
We returned to the area next day and didn't see anything.

cornell
enature
npwrc

Heartbeats

Can't find this on my blog, so post again.

Grooveshark:
heartbeats

The ones I wanted:
Scala & Kolacny Brothers
Jose Gonzalez
The Knife

Date Night

Via
reddit (13Dec11)
AND
reddit2 (31May10)

Open Browser
Tab 1
Tab 2
Tab 3



Music is:
Turnabout Jazz Soul - Track 8 - Godot - The Fragrance of Dark Coffee

New InkJet Wireless Printer

My new printer (supposed to use less ink):
Kodak ESP C315 Wireless Color Printer with Scanner & Copier
amazon
(Was $79.00)



I followed the setup instructions without problems.
Until...
I had to install the print driver from the CD.
The CD just spun and spun in the drive and would not install.
So I googled the driver, downloaded from the Net and installed without problems.
It also prompted me for a firmware update, so I installed that as well.
(Note: It's easier/faster to google it instead of trying to find it at the Kodak website.)

I've copied, scanned, printed photos, printed text and I like the printer.
Printer menu is easy to figure out and navigate.
Later, I made changes to my network and had to uninstall and reinstall printer driver/software before it would work on my new wireless network setup.

More Links:

Manual pdf
Ink Cartridges
(Was $27.98)

I think the 3 sheets 4x6 sampler pack (6657217) photo paper I got with the printer is this type:
amazon
Kodak Ultra Premium Photo Paper, 4 x 6 Inches, High Gloss, 100 sheets (1833987)
Specifications: 74 lb. - 280 g/m² - 10 mil
Ideal for showcasing and framing
Heavy/thick paper

What the local stores have is:
"Photo Paper"
Specifications: 48 lb. - 180 g/m² - 6.5 mil
Perfect for everyday printing
Thin but adequate for my needs
amazon
(1743327)
100 sheets currently cost $6.95 at Amazon.

There's also something in between those two:
"Premium"
Specifications: 66 lb. - 250 g/m² - 8.5 mil
Ideal for photo albums and sharing
amazon
(1034388)

Paper grade/weight Specs at:
Kodak

Nickelback

Nickelback has a new album out.
Here & Now
21 Nov 11

I like:
When We Stand Together
Lullaby

grooveshark

Music

Good album!
Intense.
Ceremonials (16 tracks total.)
Florence + The Machine

uk album has acoustic versions of some of the songs. (20 tracks total.)
17. Landscape
18. Heartlines (Acoustic)
19. Shake It Out (Acoustic)
20. Breaking Down (Acoustic)

Favs (YouTube):
No Light, No Light
Shake It Out
Heartlines vs Heartlines Acoustic
Spectrum
Bedroom Hymns

MORE
Grooveshark links:
Green River Ordinance
Favs:
Endlessly
Learning

Breaking Dawn 1 Soundtrack
Favs:
1. A Thousand Years, by Christina Perri (I also like the song Distance by Christina Perri.)
2. Requiem On Water, by Imperial Mammoth
3. Northern Lights, by Cider Sky

Here's a couple of Enrique Iglesias songs I've been listening to:
YouTube:
Ayer
I Like How It Feels
Grooveshark:
Enrique Iglesias

Give Me Something To Listen To

audiofil.es
via:
mefi
I tried the music category.

Who Is Singing Me Lullabies?
Interesting story

Quantum Cello
Cellist Zoe Keating
Wow, that first piece of cello music is fabulous! Crank up the sound when she starts playing.
The song is on her 2010 album, Into The Trees, and the title is Escape Artist.
Listen to it at her website.



Loved the photo of her with the cello on her back.
Found the Flickr link at her website.
Zoe by Nadya Lev
shoot for Coilhouse magazine

See Also:
npr
Her secret is in how she constructs her songs. Keating uses computer software to record sounds and musical phrases as she plays them on her one instrument.



Watch her play it at:
YouTube
(Wired exclusive performance.)
1 May 2009

wiki
Zoë Keating (b. 2 Feb 1972)
Canadian-born cellist and composer based in San Francisco, California.
Zoë's self-produced album One Cello x 16: Natoma has four times made it to #1 on the iTunes classical charts.

So then, I checked the classical billboard charts
And found this
2CELLOS (Sulic & Hauser) - Smooth Criminal

and this
2CELLOS Cover Nirvana Classic "Smells Like Teen Spirit" Live On SiriusXM Pops
That was great, lol.
(There's one at their VEVO page too, but I like this one better.)

wiki
2Cellos (stylized 2CELLOS) is a cello duo consisting of Croatia/Slovene cellists Luka Šulić and Stjepan Hauser.

The Downy and The Goldenrod

I found an interesting tidbit about the downy woodpecker and the goldenrod plant.
Both are common/abundant in North Dakota, so maybe I'll get a chance to photograph them together some day.
The article said "Canada" goldenrod?
(Mag quote: "It attacks two species within the Canada goldenrod complex almost exclusively.")

Winter Treat For Downies
Birdwatching magazine December 2011 issue

See also:
fcps.edu
via
reddit

Here's a photo of a downy I took recently in November 2011.

Blogged previously here.
The hairy woodpecker looks very similar but is bigger.

Here's a photo of goldenrod I took in August 2011, which is the month it is plentiful all over the state.
Not sure if it's Canada goldenrod.



Blogged previously here.

There are 5 kinds of goldenrod in North Dakota.
npwrc
Asteraceae (The Aster Family)

MORE LINKS:

birdwatching
Goldenrod Bonus

From the same issue Birdwatching magazine:
ID Tips for the Pine Siskin
And
Peregrine Falcon vs. Snowy Owl

Robert Burns

wiki
Robert Burns (b. 25 Jan 1759 – d. 21 Jul 1796)
Died at the age of 37.

Burns statue in Dorchester Square, Montréal, Québec (wiki):

Red Red Rose wiki
Burns worked for the final ten years of his life on projects to preserve traditional Scottish songs for the future. In all, Burns had a hand in preserving over 300 songs for posterity, the most famous being "Auld Lang Syne".

Burns referred to it (Red Red Rose) as a "simple old Scots song which I had picked up in the country."

Youtube:
Red Red Rose
Sung by Andy M. Stewart





Music, quote from archive:
Songs with the melodies (music)

YouTube:
Auld Lang Syne
The Cast, Scottish folk group

Documentary
Robert Burns - Documentary (Part 1 of 9) The People's Poet

gutenberg
Robert Burns

archive
creator:"Burns, Robert, 1759-1796"

Michel de Montaigne

wiki
28 Feb 1533 – 13 Sep 1592
Lord Michel Eyquem de Montaigne

One of the most influential writers of the French Renaissance.
Known for popularising the essay as a literary genre.
Popularly thought of as the father of Modern Skepticism.


Photo from Flickr (creative commons):
This statue stands in front of the Sorbonne university in Paris.
Paris 2006 Set
Paris 2009 Set

Wherever your life ends, it is all there.
The advantage of living is not measured by length,
but by use;
some men have lived long,
and lived little;
attend to it while you are in it.

It lies in your will,
not in the number of years,
for you to have lived enough.

Reference
Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592), French essayist. "That to Philosophize Is to Learn to Die," The Essays (Les Essais), bk. I, ch. 20, Abel Langelier, Paris (1595).

Essays (Gutenberg)
CHAPTER XIX——THAT TO STUDY PHILOSOPY IS TO LEARN TO DIE
Wherever your life ends, it is all there.
The utility of living consists not in the length of days,
but in the use of time;
a man may have lived long,
and yet lived but a little.
Make use of time while it is present with you.
It depends upon your will,
and not upon the number of days,
to have a sufficient length of life.

NOTE: I guess the translator makes a difference, huh. I liked the 1st translation (from wiki) the best.

archive.org - Creator vs subject:
creator: Michel de Montaigne
subject: Montaigne, Michel de, 1533-1592

Cafe - Movie

So there is almost nothing online about this movie.
I didn't think it was *that* bad. lol
It's different.
I bought the DVD for $10.00 at Target or WalMart.

There's a long list of song credits at the end of the movie.
The two I wanted were:

Gone Away From Me
By Ray LaMontagne
Movie Scene - Dancing in the Cafe
grooveshark
Songmeanings



Not the Real Thing
By Teddy Goldstein
Movie Scene - Song is played at the end of the movie.
amazon single
amazon Backseat Album

wiki
Trailer
imdb
review (theological themes)

Bald Eagle Juvenile

Along the Missouri again, same area as the previous mature bald eagle photo.

The regal head:

Jules Verne EBooks

wiki


(Edits mine.)

Jules Gabriel Verne (b. 8 Feb 1828 - d. 24 Mar 1905)
A French author who pioneered the science fiction genre.
He is best known for:
Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (1870)
A Journey to the Center of the Earth (1864)
Around the World in Eighty Days (1873)

Dug up the epub ebooks from mobileread forum. Sometimes those are formatted better.

Verne, Jules:
Five Weeks In A Balloon
A Journey to the Interior of the Earth
See also:
Comic Book Journey to the Center of the Earth

The Mysterious Island
MobileRead Note: A loose sequel to "20,000 Leagues Under the Seas", "The Mysterious Island" tells the story of 5 men who crash-land on an uninhabited Pacific island after their balloon is caught in a hurricane. Starting with almost no resources, the book tells how they build "civilisation" from nothing. But the island has a mysterious secret...This is one of my favourite Verne novels.

An Antarctic Mystery
Around the World in 80 Days
The Adventures of a Special Correspondent
20,000 Leagues Under the Seas
The Moon Voyage
MobileRead Note: Verne's two classic books "From the Earth to the Moon" and its sequel, "Around the Moon", in a single volume.

The Blockade Runners

In Search of the Castaways


(Illustrations, Edits mine.)

My Note: This is the one I was particularly interested in.
MobileRead Note: A chance discovery of a partially illegible message in a bottle found in a shark's stomach leads to a search for shipwrecked sailors across South America, Australia, and New Zealand (the message specified the latitude, but not the longitude of the shipwreck) with numerous adventures en-route. Basically, it's a travelogue with adventures thrown in.
The characters in this book were very popular, and Verne re-introduced them in "The Mysterious Island", which is itself a sequel to "20,000 Leagues Under the Seas", so ideally this book should be read in between "20,000 Leagues Under the Seas" and "The Mysterious Island".

Jules Verne:
archive
gutenberg

William Butler Yeats

Digging around in archives again.

I like this poem:



By William Butler Yeats (b. 13 Jun 1865 – d. 28 Jan 1939)



Photo from wiki
(Edits mine.)

archive
W B Yeats - Collected Poems, 1889-1939

archive2
W.B. Yeats; a critical study (1915)

gutenberg
Yeats, W. B. (William Butler)

mobileread forum lrf
Yeats, William Butler: Collected Poems
(Calibre can convert lrf to epub.)

A Little Excitement Saturday

So we had a little excitement Saturday...





On a trail by the Missouri.

Here's a favorite inflight photo:


Bald Eagle (Haliaeetus leucocephalus)
npwrc
The bald eagle is uncommon in North Dakota and is usually seen along the Missouri River in late fall/early winter and in the spring during migration to its northern breeding grounds.
Bald eagles do not acquire their white-colored head and tail until about 4 years of age.
The bald eagle feeds primarily on fish.

Feb 2010 NDOutdoors magazine:
listed here
Nesting in Numbers - Active Bald Eagle Nests Up in ND - Feb 2010 - (330Kb PDF)
pdf direct link
It wasn’t until the mid-2000s that the number of nesting eagles climbed in North Dakota.
To date, North Dakota Game and Fish Department biologists have logged 103 individual nest sites, some of which are no longer in use because the trees have fallen or the eagles abandoned the sites.
In 2009, Game and Fish biologists estimated that 66 nests were occupied by bald eagles, though not all eagle nest sites were visited and verified. Bald eagle nests have now been reported in 29 of 53 North Dakota counties.

enature
cornell
Cornell has some good juvenile photos alongside the golden eagle for comparison.
I'd love to get photos of the golden eagle too.